Soundscapes of a Life
Just as we are perpetually surrounded by sound, quotidian soundscapes are unavoidable, ever mutating, and yet somewhat constant and context specific.
The recurring qualities of sound patterns of places we have experienced our life in, become subtly embedded in our sense of home, familiarity, belonging and thus also in the fabric of our memory and identity. The contours that define the “I” are also made up of the sounds of the environments that the I has dwelt in.
Soundscapes of a Life is an interactive sound installation and experience, first shown at the environmental sound art festival “Lisboa Soa”, in September 2019.
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Listeners are invited to sit with the artist on a park bench in which each of 7 monophones plays back field recordings carecteristic to a specific city in which the artist has lived in.
What is proposed is a verbal exchange on the soundscapes of the life of the visitor, followed by their exploration, removing the monophones and combining them close to their ears, of the sound identities of Berlin, Lisbon, Paris, Rio, Leicester, Munich. Sometimes the result of having one ear listening to a city and one following the sounds of another is a stereo cacophony might be as dificult to experience simultaneously as it is to carry the memory of life in very distinct places.
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Listeners are invited to sit with the artist on a park bench in which each of 7 monophones plays back field recordings carecteristic to a specific city in which the artist has lived in.
What is proposed is a verbal exchange on the soundscapes of the life of the visitor, followed by their exploration, removing the monophones and combining them close to their ears, of the sound identities of Berlin, Lisbon, Paris, Rio, Leicester, Munich. Sometimes the result of having one ear listening to a city and one following the sounds of another is a stereo cacophony might be as dificult to experience simultaneously as it is to carry the memory of life in very distinct places.
